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Guzman: 'We're going to win' N.Y. Post suit

By Dylan Byers

10/29/13 03:18 PM EDT

Sandra Guzman, the former New York Post editor who is taking the paper to court on harassment charges, says she is confident she will win the case.

"We're going to win," she told POLITICO on Tuesday, hours after a district judge shot down the Post's effort to dismiss the case. "What I experienced at the Post I did not experience alone. I will have lots of witnesses that will collaborate."

Guzman, who claims she was fired in 2009 for protesting a political cartoon that she deemed racist, charged Allan, the Post, and News Corp, the paper's parent company with harassment, "unlawful employment practices" and wrongful termination. On Tuesday, the district court accepted News Corp's motion for dismissal while denying similar motions by Allan and the Post.

Guzman said that Ken Thompson, a candidate for Brooklyn District Attorney, has personally expressed his desire to represent her in the case.

In her lawsuit, Guzman characterizes the Post culture as "a hostile work environment where female employees and employees of color have been subjected to pervasive and systemic discrimination and/or unlawful harassment based on their gender, race, color and/or national origin." Included in her lawsuit are charges that Col Allan, the editor-in-chief, "rubbed his penis up against" a female colleague.

In a statement, the New York Post called Guzman's allegations "completely unfounded."

"We are pleased that the claims against News Corp were thrown out," read the statement, which was sent by the communications firm Rubenstein. "We look forward to presenting the truth about the remaining charges -- which are completely unfounded -- to a jury."

For Guzman, however, today's disctrict court ruling already feels like a victory.

"Today's decision is a victory -- for all the years and the motions and the difficulty of reliving the horrors that I've experienced," she said. "I'm really looking forward to have a jury of my peers to examine rampant sexism and racism that I experienced at the Post."

"Rupert Murdoch has had to defend his editors in England, and now he's going to have to defend his racist and homophobic editor in New York," she added, referring to the News Corp chief.